1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:15,200
This is Hacker Public Radio episode 3778 for Wednesday, the 25th of January 2023.

2
00:00:15,200 --> 00:00:22,000
Today's show is entitled, a squirrel being on Google products and Google security.

3
00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:26,880
It is hosted by Zenfloatored 2 and is about 20 minutes long.

4
00:00:26,880 --> 00:00:29,680
It carries an explicit flag.

5
00:00:29,680 --> 00:00:34,400
The summary is I made it being podcast about Google products, interoperability, and

6
00:00:34,400 --> 00:00:40,960
they're allows you security.

7
00:00:40,960 --> 00:00:46,480
Hello boys and girls from Zenfloatored your favorite magical forest squirrel.

8
00:00:46,480 --> 00:00:53,560
Former human being converted into squirrel by aliens in the 1960s and atheist.

9
00:00:53,560 --> 00:00:59,520
With another podcast definitely because they're screaming at us and beating

10
00:00:59,520 --> 00:01:04,480
boards on the concrete saying we got to make podcasts.

11
00:01:04,480 --> 00:01:09,520
Well let me tell you about my Google world.

12
00:01:09,520 --> 00:01:14,320
I've got these Chromebooks, I'm recording this on the Samsung 310 Chromebook which is a really

13
00:01:14,320 --> 00:01:18,320
nice little Chromebook that reminds me of the Dell mini-tambi.

14
00:01:18,320 --> 00:01:23,840
It's so small and tiny and it's got a battery life over 10 hours.

15
00:01:23,840 --> 00:01:27,840
I love the Chromebooks.

16
00:01:27,840 --> 00:01:32,560
Anyway I want to talk a little bit about Android phones for a second.

17
00:01:32,560 --> 00:01:38,080
I can use Android phones Wi-Fi hotspot with T-Mobile to get on the internet post shows

18
00:01:38,080 --> 00:01:42,560
like this one while I'm out and about visiting relatives.

19
00:01:42,560 --> 00:01:47,800
Anyway I was down in Texas and my phone started acting kind of funny.

20
00:01:47,800 --> 00:01:54,240
So I decided I'd erase it, you know like you erase a Chromebook, I basically did a

21
00:01:54,240 --> 00:01:59,760
factor reset on it, problem is squirrel didn't remember that they have two factor

22
00:01:59,760 --> 00:02:04,560
authentication Google and it all goes right back to your stupid phone.

23
00:02:04,560 --> 00:02:12,000
So I couldn't log in to or create any new instances of Chrome, you know, install them on

24
00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:20,720
Linux or log into Gmail, let's say on Firefox, I couldn't do that with that phone.

25
00:02:20,720 --> 00:02:26,800
I did manage to turn off the two factor authentication on at least the Chrome side

26
00:02:28,880 --> 00:02:36,240
to allow me to install Linux distributions on this one laptop and install Chrome or log into

27
00:02:36,240 --> 00:02:40,080
Google with Firefox that way.

28
00:02:42,080 --> 00:02:47,680
It wouldn't allow me to just enter my password because he's time at asked, I need to verify

29
00:02:47,680 --> 00:02:50,880
you're who you're at and we're going to do that through your phone.

30
00:02:50,880 --> 00:02:55,520
So I asked it to send me a text message, it wouldn't even do that, it wouldn't do anything.

31
00:02:55,520 --> 00:03:07,200
It locked me out of my account and as I was locked out I became angry with two factor

32
00:03:07,200 --> 00:03:13,120
authentication because I started thinking about it, you know, I realized that this isn't

33
00:03:13,120 --> 00:03:20,320
so much about security as it is about just then making sure that you always have an Android

34
00:03:20,320 --> 00:03:27,680
phone, you know, and you don't get rid of that Android phone that Android presence is always with you.

35
00:03:28,720 --> 00:03:30,560
And it started to piss me off.

36
00:03:30,560 --> 00:03:37,600
Anyway, the way Google's got stuff set up is you can turn off two factor authentication on the

37
00:03:37,600 --> 00:03:44,880
Chrome side, but that's separate from turning it off on the Android cell phone side.

38
00:03:45,520 --> 00:03:46,960
It's like two separate switches.

39
00:03:47,760 --> 00:03:56,480
So anyway, I traveled the day after to another Texas town and some time around 10 or 11 in the

40
00:03:56,480 --> 00:04:02,080
morning, I tried to log back into my Android phone again and get my Google account activated.

41
00:04:02,080 --> 00:04:11,600
And it let me do it. Surprisingly, without a text message, no verification or or any silly nonsense.

42
00:04:11,600 --> 00:04:14,480
And I thought, well, this is just crazy. What kind of security is that?

43
00:04:15,600 --> 00:04:19,120
So basically what they did was they locked me out of my account for a day because I

44
00:04:19,120 --> 00:04:24,240
effectively set my phone as punishment for doing it, I guess. I don't know.

45
00:04:25,120 --> 00:04:31,760
It certainly wasn't security the way they let me back in again, but I'm happy I got my phone back,

46
00:04:31,760 --> 00:04:40,800
but in the two factor authentication just flat pisses me off and I realized that the

47
00:04:40,800 --> 00:04:50,640
security aspects of it are important. But the way it was handled, I was reading a website about

48
00:04:50,640 --> 00:04:56,560
it the day I actually reset the phone and realized I screwed up that it would work if I went home

49
00:04:56,560 --> 00:05:02,480
and got my own Wi-Fi with the phone because it realized that that phone had been through my home

50
00:05:02,480 --> 00:05:06,640
Wi-Fi to receive updates and stuff. So it would let me log back in and they said that right

51
00:05:06,640 --> 00:05:13,040
of the website. But it didn't mention if me going to some Camelite Conro, Texas the next day

52
00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:20,720
from the Dallas area and all of a sudden being able to log in from whatever cell tower it is

53
00:05:20,720 --> 00:05:28,640
they have down there. Isn't that weird? And you know I've never been there before. So how does it

54
00:05:28,640 --> 00:05:38,000
know it was me? I don't know. Maybe it was the fact that I had the Samsung 310 Chromebook with me

55
00:05:38,640 --> 00:05:44,320
and I was using it through the hot spot that it detected that oh this must be the same guy

56
00:05:44,320 --> 00:05:53,200
because the Chrome authentication is just as strong as the Android. Anyway it pissed me off that

57
00:05:54,080 --> 00:05:59,120
Google decided that they weren't going to provide a switch or button that would pop up on your

58
00:05:59,120 --> 00:06:08,480
Chromebook saying hey would you lock to log back into your cell phone? You know it's always one way

59
00:06:08,480 --> 00:06:18,960
from a Chrome browser or a Chrome network Chromebook. You have to authenticate against the Android

60
00:06:18,960 --> 00:06:28,000
phone but it's never, never you on an Android phone having to authenticate with a Chromebook.

61
00:06:29,120 --> 00:06:35,600
You see what I'm saying? In other words they could send this authorization code to my Chromebook

62
00:06:35,600 --> 00:06:40,160
as well as they could the Android phone and have them both covered. Don't you think? I mean wouldn't

63
00:06:40,160 --> 00:06:45,600
that just be common sense but anyway they don't have any option to do that apparently. They have no

64
00:06:45,600 --> 00:06:52,640
option to do that. And it really freaked me out when they wouldn't send me a text message with their

65
00:06:52,640 --> 00:06:59,440
six digit code on it. You know I get an understand where you don't get a pop up say did you

66
00:06:59,440 --> 00:07:05,680
log in on a phone that's not logged in itself? You know it's been erased but you can send a

67
00:07:05,680 --> 00:07:12,560
damp text message. Anyway it wouldn't do that. So the whole thing pretty much pissed me off.

68
00:07:14,960 --> 00:07:23,440
I was rather impressed with the security and I felt like two-factor authentication is basically

69
00:07:23,440 --> 00:07:31,360
just another way of forcing their market handle with Android phones. The other way that I see them

70
00:07:31,360 --> 00:07:37,680
for forcing the hand with Android phones is the QR codes that are popping up all over

71
00:07:37,680 --> 00:07:46,720
and grocery stores at government offices and places like Pepsi and Coca-Cola and whatnot.

72
00:07:46,720 --> 00:07:53,920
You walk into a building and you need to know what to do. There's a QR thing that you can scan.

73
00:07:54,800 --> 00:08:01,040
In fact I saw a rental card that had a QR code stuck to the windshield of the inside that you

74
00:08:01,040 --> 00:08:05,120
could scan with the phone and it would tell you about the car you just rented. You know your budget

75
00:08:05,120 --> 00:08:16,240
car or whatever. Anyway they're that plus my doctor's office just recently went with a

76
00:08:16,240 --> 00:08:29,680
software company called Helio H-E-L-H-E-A-L-I-O and they've got an electron app that is in the

77
00:08:29,680 --> 00:08:36,560
place door and that's how I get my doctor's diagnosis and orders and communicate with the pharmacy.

78
00:08:38,560 --> 00:08:43,040
So I mean they're really getting a tip point where the next thing you know I'll be voting for

79
00:08:43,040 --> 00:08:51,280
busher Biden or I mean excuse me Trupper or Biden using some damn app from Google you know it's

80
00:08:52,400 --> 00:08:59,040
it's going to be just that freaking crazy. So I guess they're going to get it to point where if you

81
00:08:59,040 --> 00:09:04,000
lost your phone and your phone became disabled basically you were a dead man walking.

82
00:09:05,200 --> 00:09:10,720
So anyway I'll get off that subject. I'm just today is Ramlin Squirrel Day and I will

83
00:09:10,720 --> 00:09:17,440
I will post the highlights of my complaint session you know humans get to complain all the time

84
00:09:18,160 --> 00:09:23,280
squirrels should have the right to complain as well don't you think don't you agree?

85
00:09:25,360 --> 00:09:31,600
So anyway let's talk about easy tether and using easy tether to access yourself on

86
00:09:31,600 --> 00:09:42,480
to use all malenics or fedora or a ubiquitous product or deviant you know one of the major

87
00:09:42,480 --> 00:09:51,680
distributions to use an easy tether driver even even free BSD has an easy tether driver where you

88
00:09:51,680 --> 00:10:02,640
can you can get cell phone speed to you know like grab an ISO through our torrent you know a torrent

89
00:10:02,640 --> 00:10:13,680
phone or watch a movie for instance or video that has a higher bandwidth than they offer on your

90
00:10:13,680 --> 00:10:24,320
stupid android hotspot you know it's funny but they try to if I use SSH to go back into my

91
00:10:24,320 --> 00:10:30,480
Open BSD server all of a sudden we don't get this five to six megabit per second bandwidth

92
00:10:31,360 --> 00:10:36,560
that we do through Google services they show great favor with the cell towers to Google servers

93
00:10:37,840 --> 00:10:42,800
but apparently the cell companies they won't let you communicate with your own private server

94
00:10:42,800 --> 00:10:49,360
much past two or three hundred kilobox per second that's what it's deadly slow even with these

95
00:10:49,360 --> 00:10:54,880
it isn't they they they they throttle it in fact if you're using a torrent I noticed to do the

96
00:10:54,880 --> 00:10:59,440
same thing they'll throttle it down about three hundred kilobox per second even with easy tether

97
00:11:01,200 --> 00:11:06,160
and of course I said the Wi-Fi hotspot on team levels just pathetic it's like 80 kilobox per second

98
00:11:06,160 --> 00:11:11,440
you there's a lot of videos you can't even play using a Wi-Fi hotspot you can play a lot of

99
00:11:11,440 --> 00:11:17,120
YouTube stuff and a little bit of bits you but not much else if anything and I would just

100
00:11:17,120 --> 00:11:22,960
sitting here thinking with this bandwidth hungry as these Chromebooks are it's funny but when I

101
00:11:22,960 --> 00:11:28,720
don't start doing some major transfers to and from Google Drive using one of my Chromebooks

102
00:11:29,440 --> 00:11:37,680
through a relay that I set up with a fedora and an easy tether driver and make my own Wi-Fi hotspot

103
00:11:37,680 --> 00:11:43,840
I found that these Chromebooks didn't really throw files up to and down from Google Drive I mean

104
00:11:44,400 --> 00:11:49,360
if they see you're communicating Google Drive oh you can get 1011 megabits per second bandwidth

105
00:11:50,400 --> 00:11:56,800
I'm just it's jaw dropping you can get the whole slack where cd and like three minutes or less

106
00:11:58,240 --> 00:12:04,880
you know that I've got stored out on Google Drive it's it's jaw dropping the performance that you have

107
00:12:04,880 --> 00:12:11,440
if you're going to Google as opposed to anyone else you know even even bitshoot or a rumble or any

108
00:12:11,440 --> 00:12:17,600
of the other sites they get throttled compared to YouTube and Google and it's such a lot of

109
00:12:17,600 --> 00:12:24,800
things and you think that that Google had so much power over our cell phone companies that the

110
00:12:24,800 --> 00:12:29,280
and I'm going to just call this the silly bastards because I'm angry at them and I'm getting

111
00:12:29,280 --> 00:12:33,840
angry at the whole Chromebook thing I'm angry that they have these angered phones but they don't

112
00:12:33,840 --> 00:12:43,360
have a way to allow a Google Chromebook to obtain that sort of bandwidth through the phone we

113
00:12:43,360 --> 00:12:47,920
have to go through the silly little motor and that's just a pile of crap you know it blows me away

114
00:12:49,680 --> 00:12:56,000
I can sit there and watch it suck down five and six megabits per second watching an HD

115
00:12:56,000 --> 00:13:00,960
video on YouTube through the Android phone but yet obviously they've got a throttle and

116
00:13:00,960 --> 00:13:07,920
complain and bitch about me doing SSH over a server that has only one megabit per second

117
00:13:07,920 --> 00:13:12,080
connection up under no actually it's two and a half I'm sorry 2.6 something like that

118
00:13:12,080 --> 00:13:18,560
megabit per second up and down on the upper BSD server hello it's got to cut that down to 250

119
00:13:18,560 --> 00:13:31,520
kilobits per second you know no why why doesn't Google have their own easy tether that will work

120
00:13:31,520 --> 00:13:39,440
through the USB or work through the Bluetooth or even the Wi-Fi or their own damn Android phones

121
00:13:39,440 --> 00:13:45,680
that allows Chromebooks to obtain the bandwidth that one gets when you're using an Android on

122
00:13:45,680 --> 00:13:50,880
these cell towers the cell frequencies then they make you wonder and I understand with the

123
00:13:50,880 --> 00:13:55,680
new 5G phones it's no different I mean they have the basically the same policies are going

124
00:13:55,680 --> 00:14:00,720
to it even though you'll be at 5G and it's got like a hundred megabit per second bandwidth in

125
00:14:00,720 --> 00:14:05,680
some areas you're still only going to get 80 or 90 kilobits per second through the stupid Wi-Fi

126
00:14:05,680 --> 00:14:11,120
hotspot isn't they just paying you shouldn't stupid and it is it's how they're going to do it

127
00:14:11,120 --> 00:14:16,400
because obviously they want everybody in the planet to communicate with Google servers

128
00:14:17,120 --> 00:14:22,720
through their cell phone networks and only using an Android phone you can't use Chrome OS you can't

129
00:14:22,720 --> 00:14:30,560
use dev one or devion or all-malenics or anything else open BSD can't use anything to communicate

130
00:14:30,560 --> 00:14:37,760
through that network other than a damn Android phone or a iOS phone and to Google properties

131
00:14:37,760 --> 00:14:44,800
that's it that's the only time you're going to get that sort of bandwidth folks it's utterly

132
00:14:44,800 --> 00:14:52,640
insane in fact it got to a point I had to transfer a 20 video files about open BSD I wanted it on my

133
00:14:52,640 --> 00:15:04,160
laptop and here's what I did I logged into my I did an SSH to the open BSD server that I have

134
00:15:04,160 --> 00:15:09,840
at the house while I was out in the roof and I found the 20 videos I wanted put them in a file folder

135
00:15:10,560 --> 00:15:14,880
and then I had our clone upload those to the Google Drive that I have

136
00:15:17,280 --> 00:15:24,720
which it did in you know five or six minutes and then from Google Drive I took my Android phone

137
00:15:24,720 --> 00:15:30,080
and downloaded all 20 of these videos one at a time because you can't do file folders on the

138
00:15:30,080 --> 00:15:36,080
stupid Android app you know in Google Drive it's one freaking video at a time got it at a good

139
00:15:36,080 --> 00:15:39,920
bandwidth you know each one of them transferred down in a minute or so and they were pretty good

140
00:15:39,920 --> 00:15:50,000
size video files then I just tethered the Android phone to a Linux powered laptop and I turned

141
00:15:50,000 --> 00:15:56,880
I said okay to you know file transfer for the MTP file transfer and I transfer them off of the

142
00:15:56,880 --> 00:16:02,720
phone onto the hard drive of the Linux laptop I couldn't do it directly for the damn server

143
00:16:02,720 --> 00:16:07,200
which would be more efficient of course then going through Google Drive but it was the only way I could

144
00:16:07,200 --> 00:16:15,040
get the bandwidth to get all those files and say less than a day I mean their policies are

145
00:16:15,040 --> 00:16:22,720
crazy and you know I'm surprised that we as a nation are allowing them to basically

146
00:16:22,720 --> 00:16:29,840
take over our airwaves you know we grant them a license to run these cell towers they don't own

147
00:16:29,840 --> 00:16:35,680
the damn airwaves we grant them privileges to use those airwaves to put their cell towers up we should

148
00:16:35,680 --> 00:16:41,520
be telling them how they're going to run it in the manager period and to have it all

149
00:16:41,520 --> 00:16:48,960
biased toward one company for just Android services alone it is like when I look at Google

150
00:16:48,960 --> 00:16:56,560
hmm when I look at this Chromebook or a Chrome installation on say dev one or something of the

151
00:16:56,560 --> 00:17:04,560
Chrome web browser I see one company okay when I look at Android which is also Google product

152
00:17:04,560 --> 00:17:10,880
it's like I'm looking at another company and the two don't get along with each other they don't

153
00:17:10,880 --> 00:17:17,280
cross communicate don't they don't interoperated all I can't get the bandwidth on the Chromebook

154
00:17:17,280 --> 00:17:22,720
that you get on the Android phone because it's not allowed I mean they keep halfing it up

155
00:17:24,560 --> 00:17:32,880
and I can't authorize a login on an Android phone from a known established Chromebook with good

156
00:17:32,880 --> 00:17:38,560
credentials for Google which is insane that's insane they don't even have an option to do it

157
00:17:39,760 --> 00:17:46,000
every two factor thing that they've got points right back at the Android phone that was affected

158
00:17:46,000 --> 00:17:55,680
that was reset isn't I just insane boys and girls anyway I'm just in a tizzy about this I

159
00:17:55,680 --> 00:18:00,480
thought I'd make a video about it other than that I just wanted to tell you I've been goofing around

160
00:18:00,480 --> 00:18:06,960
with various Linux distributions and I don't want to trash geeks but I just tried the geeks 1.4

161
00:18:06,960 --> 00:18:13,760
install CD on it to sheba laptop and got about halfway through and just died so I restarted it

162
00:18:13,760 --> 00:18:21,520
tried it again same thing the halfway through and died that's with a picking the known desktop

163
00:18:21,520 --> 00:18:27,200
so I guess I'll try again today or tomorrow with the XSC desktop and see if I can get geeks installed

164
00:18:28,240 --> 00:18:34,480
that there installed DVD is really buggy but I didn't want to try it and see how they're doing I haven't

165
00:18:34,480 --> 00:18:43,520
used it over a year and I also thought I might try downloading a magia and installing that and see

166
00:18:43,520 --> 00:18:51,680
what magia's up to because magia is almost like fedora in that you know they'll have the latest

167
00:18:51,680 --> 00:18:58,560
most modern kernel in there and software it's magia's almost like a rolling release where

168
00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:05,040
they're actual release cycles like when they go from magia 8 to 9 which will happen soon

169
00:19:05,840 --> 00:19:10,880
they're just changing their their little control center where they allow you to set up

170
00:19:10,880 --> 00:19:15,440
sand with servers and stuff like that you know your time zone and all that mantp step

171
00:19:17,280 --> 00:19:24,720
you know just their control interface but to run magia as our call is his like running a rolling

172
00:19:24,720 --> 00:19:29,680
release by the way you can't get an easy to the driver from magia at all the last one they made

173
00:19:29,680 --> 00:19:35,920
missed her magia 6 and that was quite some time ago it doesn't seem to work with the magia 8 at all

174
00:19:35,920 --> 00:19:44,480
so there's probably some fix for that anyway that's all I had I just wanted to touch base

175
00:19:46,560 --> 00:19:50,640
you know the seasons the holiday seasons hope everybody's had a good holiday season

176
00:19:52,000 --> 00:19:57,520
and that their hibernation has been going well for the winter I haven't been doing much

177
00:19:57,520 --> 00:20:03,840
hibernating I've been traveling a little bit the weather here in the Gulf Coast states Oklahoma

178
00:20:03,840 --> 00:20:12,960
Texas Louisiana Arkansas in Mexico has been warm it's been in the 60s on a couple days it's

179
00:20:12,960 --> 00:20:20,400
practically got up to almost 80 degrees there's no sign of winter I can't remember the last day

180
00:20:20,400 --> 00:20:25,040
it was below freezing even in the early morning back this morning when I woke up it was

181
00:20:26,400 --> 00:20:32,640
I think it was in the 40s somewhere so anyway they were certainly not going to have any snow or

182
00:20:32,640 --> 00:20:38,800
ice this winter if we do it it's going to be a free and I thought I'd just post this to you

183
00:20:39,440 --> 00:20:46,080
as my squirrel being session you know I can't use the real words the real human words so

184
00:20:47,200 --> 00:20:55,440
I'll use my being session which is like bumblebee of course for squirrel complaining

185
00:20:55,440 --> 00:21:03,440
bye for now everyone have a pleasant day love to everyone from Saint Flood of the school

186
00:21:06,480 --> 00:21:11,440
you have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org

187
00:21:11,440 --> 00:21:17,440
today's show was contributed by a HBR this night like yourself if you ever thought of a coin

188
00:21:17,440 --> 00:21:24,480
podcast click on our contribute link to find out how easy it means hosting courage we are

189
00:21:24,480 --> 00:21:31,680
has been kindly provided by an onsthost.com internet archive and our synced.net

190
00:21:31,680 --> 00:21:36,720
on the satellite stages today's show is released on our creative comments

191
00:21:36,720 --> 00:21:56,720
attribution 4.0 international license